Some of the same criticisms mentioned about Avvo were brought up in the NPR piece about doctor rating sites, including the fact that the people doing the ratings may not be the best judges of the service.

In fact, FreeAdvice Chief Executive Gerry Goldsholle, who operates the online directory AttorneyPages, used the doctor analogy to express the possible problems with attorney ratings in my story on Avvo last year.

“The average person does not, to his or her great fortune, have to deal with lawyers every day. So the experience is unusual,” Goldsholle said. “It is like the patient grading the surgeon. It is very hard to tell individually if the surgeon has done the best job or not.”